Dr. Judy Morgan 0:00
Thank you for tuning in to the Naturally Healthy Pets podcast. Today my discussion with Billy Hoekman is going to teach you so much about what goes into pet food. What's the difference between synthetic vitamins or natural vitamins in Whole Foods? Should you be afraid of fats in your pet's food? You'll find out. And what should you be adding to the bowl to make your pet's food healthier? Stay tuned.
Dr. Judy Morgan 0:31
Hello everyone. Welcome to the Naturally Healthy Pets podcast. I'm your host, Dr Judy Morgan. Today, I have my good friend Billy Hoekman here, and Billy is the Vice President of Nutrition and Communication for Green Juju. Green Juju is a pet food and supplement company, would that be correct? And one of one of those that makes products that are above and beyond what is typically found in the pet food industry, one of the companies that is really moving things forward. And Billy loves to play with food and experiment. He's a food nerd.
Billy Hoekman 1:13
That is very true. Yes to the bane of my wife, yes, I am Yes.
Dr. Judy Morgan
Well, yeah, we can talk about poop cheese later.
Dr. Judy Morgan 1:21
Billy likes to experiment with food in their kitchen. And yeah, sometimes it doesn't go so well. But because he is a food nerd, he also is really good at doing formulating and coming up with some novel ideas in the pet food world, which is kind of cool. And then sometimes he sends me things and says, Here, try this out, which is also kind of cool. So my dogs get to be guinea pigs as well.
Dr. Judy Morgan 1:48
And so because you're such a food nerd, we're going to talk about some topics that are also kind of near and dear to my heart, because people ask me all the time when you're looking at food and supplements and trying to decide what meets approval and what doesn't meet approval. There are a lot of things that I look for on those ingredient panels, and so one of the things that I'm really a stickler about is that I want to see food formulated with whole foods. And I don't want to see a lot of synthetic vitamins and minerals and things thrown in there.
Dr. Judy Morgan 2:31
I mean, frankly, I feel like you could take shoe leather and add a vitamin mineral mix to it, and probably get up to AAFCO standards, which are pretty low.
Billy Hoekman
It makes formulating very easy. when you use synthetic vitamins, you can almost do anything. That's very true
Dr. Judy Morgan
Exactly. So let's talk about some of the differences, and how people would know that, you know. And we kind of talk about, well, there's if you're going to have to add some vitamins or minerals, there are better forms and there are worse forms.
Billy Hoekman
Yeah, I think one of the problems that we run into, just in general, in pet food, but also sometimes in the holistic side of pet food, is we come across these issues that we see because of synthetics or because of the way that AAFCO approves ingredients, and then we think that those things maybe need to be fixed in all cases, but maybe they don't. And I don't know if that necessarily comes from, like, wanting to placate to sometimes I think it comes from wanting to, like, placate to conventional veterinarians, you know, like, Hey, we're meeting these nutrient profiles. This is what, this is what we're doing
Billy Hoekman 3:41
to try to get more people on board. But I like the fact that the holistic mindset is kind of, oh, there's problems. Let's try to fix them in a more natural way. But I think sometimes we jump to the conclusion of like, hey, let's try to fix this problem, but we don't know exactly what the cause is or where it's coming from, or maybe it's coming from somewhere synthetic and we don't have to fix it. Or maybe we can look at a different angle. And I feel like that comes across in some of the what I kind of see online versus, you know, using whole foods and things like that.
Dr. Judy Morgan
Yeah, it's interesting. Years ago, Dr Harvey's came out with a new base mix product, and they sent me a sample of it with the packaging, and I looked at it, and I said, Okay, help me out here, because it was a product that they wanted to be a little more ketoish for people who had pets that they were worried about cancer, or they already had cancer, you know, might be developing some issues. So that was sort of the premise of it. And I looked at it, and I said, Okay, that's great. However you've got these, this added vitamin mineral mix in here. Is there any way you could change this so that you wouldn't have to add that in?
Dr. Judy Morgan 5:00
And they said, Sure we can do that, but the veterinarians, the traditional veterinarians, if they don't see that vitamin mineral mix in there, they won't promote it, and they automatically assume that it's not going to be balanced because it doesn't have that list of chemicals in there. And then fairly shortly after that, they came out with a second base mix product that was balanced using whole foods, and they got rid of that vitamin mineral mix, so they placated me, which was, yay.
Billy Hoekman 5:31
That goes back to the consumer level as well, because our food has such a short ingredient panel and doesn't have any synthetics. And people often will email and be like, Oh, I notice on every other bag I've looked at, there is a list of vitamins and minerals to make sure, and then you kind of have to go through and explain. I mean, luckily, like sending them the nutrient panel gives them, here's the vitamins. But it's honestly hard to like. If you look at like human vitamin and mineral supplements, it's hard to decipher between, because sometimes it's from food, but then they write the vitamin name and the amount, you know, as the form.
Billy Hoekman 6:07
So sometimes that stuff can be hard to decipher, especially if you're a consumer. but you know, we we run into specific issues with, you know, the synthetic forms versus the food forms, which can be totally
different. And I would say the first one that comes to mind in that particular case is something like copper, which is a hugely hot button issue, I feel like, in our, in our, you know, section of the industry. But it was, it was interesting when we kind of took a total look at it, because we were like, where is this coming from, right? So we can look at this study and go, Okay, these animals are developed, are storing more copper, even though they don't have copper storage disease.
Billy Hoekman 6:57
And that's what I mean when I was kind of saying, like, that's a problem we need to look at. But the ultimate assumption was, oh, we need to do less copper. But my, my reaction to that was, well, let's look at food based copper versus, you know, non food based copper.
Dr. Judy Morgan
Well, that's the thing. I mean, the bioavailability is going to be very different. And unfortunately, AAFCO kind of uses,
Dr. Judy Morgan 7:25
I don't think there's really good studies to back up how much they say should be in there. And the problem with copper is they have a minimum, but they don't have a maximum.
Billy Hoekman
Yeah, and you have to, when you're talking about synthetic copper, you're talking about 100 or more percent digestibility.
Billy Hoekman 7:46
So you're talking about something that is not in its natural form. It's not connected to other nutrients. It's not it doesn't go through the body's normal processes. And so what we looked at was all of the mammal studies with copper consumption and coming from natural sources. And what we found was that the body has several regulators that stop the body from absorbing or absorb more, depending on the diet. So what that found was that mammals, if their diet was deficient in copper, can digest up to about 60% and if their diet has a bunch of copper, they were, they were digesting as low as 12% so the body was actually maintaining proper levels. But when you're talking about synthetic copper, and I think that's where this issue comes from, almost exclusively, because if you look at that study, if you took a random sample of dogs across America, like a true random sample. How many of them do you think would be on raw diets that don't feature synthetics? Zero? I mean, if you truly just took a sample, right of dogs, and so,
Billy Hoekman 8:53
I think in some of the data supports that you can actually trace it back to when AAFCO actually started using a more bioavailable because they were like, We need to be more bioavailable. But the truth is, we didn't need it to be. So I think it's hard to set a maximum if you're using food, but most people aren't just using food. It's not coming from organs, it's not coming from the it's coming from the synthetic form. And with that being said, I would say, like, if your dog actually has copper storage, that's work with a veterinarian, work with the healthcare on on a proper diet, because just because it's food based doesn't mean it's appropriate for every dog, right?
Dr. Judy Morgan
Yeah, I actually had a client who had a very active, very healthy dog, who suddenly went into liver failure, and she did the biopsies, and it came out with copper storage disease. And the dog was on a raw food diet. Was not on a kibble based diet, but it was a raw Food Company that I consider to be highly suspect.
Dr. Judy Morgan10:04
And I said, Well, we've got to move away from this food. I'd kind of asked her to do that before. And she was like, oh, no, this food's fine, and there was a problem.
Dr. Judy Morgan 10:16
And so we moved the dog off of that diet, and I think she ended up doing some chelation to try to get some of that copper out. The dog ended up doing great. Dogs still competing, dogs still doing really well. So yeah, it's not necessarily just from synthetics, but we you know, yeah, but I think the synthetics cause a much bigger problem. So in that vein, can you explain the difference between something like a copper sulfate versus a an amino acid chelate, and how the bio availability may differ in those
Billy Hoekman 10:55
I want to say offhand that the the sulfate is what they switch to,in terms of Is what? Because AAFCO usually approves, like, multiple forms of, you know, synthetic additives, be it if it's copper or anything else, and as far as I know, the sulfate is going to be more bioavailable, just broadly.
Dr. Judy Morgan 11:27
So copper, we hear about a lot because of copper storage disease, and we're seeing, you know, I'm getting more and more reports of that kind of there. There are certain things that, over the years, we're getting more of. Autoimmune meningoencephalitis with no, you know, unknown cause. We're seeing a ton of that. Okay, something has changed, and, you know, we're causing these problems. But different topic. But another thing that people talk about a lot is Iodine. And I get, you know, people really freaking out over oh my gosh. You know, a lot of these supplements have kelp in them. We've got too much iodine. I'm worried about thyroid disease. Personally, I have never seen an animal with an issue related to iodine in the food. That's just not something I see.
Dr. Judy Morgan 12:22
So what's your feeling on that, as far as supplemental iodine, these supplements that have a lot of kelp or seaweed products in them, do you think that with that natural source of iodine, we can really overdo it, and that we're going to cause problems?
Billy Hoekman
Well, it's the difference between iodide and iodine and the synthetic form versus the non synthetic form. And it's interesting, because you just, you have to, and you can look at, you know, human populations, which will kind of touch on, but when you look at the bioavailability of common kelp species, as far as not using the synthetic form of it, which, again, is up in that very high range of digestibility,
Billy Hoekman 13:08
some of those are as low as 3% some of those are, I that from the data that I looked at in iodine, just generally from kelp, it was they averaged out between, I think I looked at like 10 different species at about 12% digestibility. And so that's where, you know, one of the things that Conor Brady always talks about, that's why people in Japan who eat, you know, 20 times their amount of RDA iniodine, because you're eating so much sushi and things like that, are totally fine, because the digestibility is more natural and more natural and more naturally low. And so that's where, like, I think if you're dealing with a particular health issue, you could be overly cautious. You could be cautious and be like, Oh, I'm not going to use a supplement that has it, but I think you're right in that. Like, I think most people that are using, say, a food that has naturally existing kelp for iodine in it, and then they're using a dental supplement. I don't think they're going to see that overload of iodine just because of the fact that, you know the digestibility, because it's, in that case, it's attached to other nutrients, right? It's, it's like evolutionarily, I guess, more appropriate, for lack of a better term.
Billy Hoekman 14:22
But it's interesting because sometimes you also have to find like, interesting ways to go around people's preconceived notions, like in our new in our new foods, we actually used fermented seaweed instead of kelp, because some people have kelp allergies, some people. And it was interesting because with the fermented seaweed, there was less iodine, so we could actually use more of it, you know, to hit that sort of like nutrient requirement, but also looking at the digestibility. And so I think it's good to get that variety in there. But again, it goes kind of back to like, it is not impossible.
Billy Hoekman 15:00
But it is particularly hard to have an overdose of any given nutrient when it comes from actual food, vitamin or mineral like
Dr. Judy Morgan
and is that kind of like we were talking about with copper, the body is going to pull it and utilize what it needs and kind of dump what it doesn't.
Billy Hoekman
And I think that has to do also with, again, it being attached to, not only being in a food environment. So there's other things, there's fiber, there's all these things that affect this digestibility, versus, sort of streamlining that nutrient into one thing and then making it as bioavailable as possible. And that's kind of Luckily in nutrition, we're getting better at that. You know, you can actually find in the human world food based multivitamins and things like that.
Billy Hoekman 15:46
But food is still the best place for nutrients, and nature has a has a really nice way of making sure that the body doesn't even when it comes like fat soluble vitamins, it's actually particularly hard to overdose if it's coming from not synthetics. And I did want to add as well, which I think is interesting, because I've seen this in raw diets before. Sometimes they'll have, like, just a couple of synthetic vitamins, and one of them is almost always copper. And I'm always like, that's such a strange thing, because you almost don't have to formulate for copper, because it's always going to be present, yeah? Like, if you just formulate dog food, you will meet the AAFCO minimum for copper, unless you're specifically trying not to,
Dr. Judy Morgan
well, yeah, if you're, if you're saying, I'm not going to use any organ meats at all, which, and that's one of the things with home, home prepared foods. For some reason, people don't want to use organs, and they get squeamish about it. And I don't want to touch liver, I don't want to touch kidney, and it's like, yeah, there's a lot of nutrients in there that they kind of really need.
Billy Hoekman
Yeah, that's our that's our entire food.
Billy Hoekman 16:53
If you look at our beef, it's just heart, liver and kidney and so. And then something else about that, which is nice too, which I think you cover a lot, is like, feeding, like. And you know, our, if you look at our beef food, like the muscle content is replaced by heart. And for a 30 pound dog, just in eating our food, it's a 50 milligram dose of CO Q 10, which is a, which is a really supplemental dose, yeah, and that's just from the food itself. And so we we go into that a lot in regard to that, and I think that's kind of the results we saw in our feeding trial as well.
Dr. Judy Morgan 17:29
So with the fat soluble like water soluble vitamins, they're just going to pee out the excess
Dr. Judy Morgan 17:35
fat soluble vitamins are stored in the fat. So A, D, E and K. Do you see overdoses with those using whole foods?
Billy Hoekman
Typically no and especially, you know, I would say, like, there's definitely more information when it comes like, humans in this, in this particular area,
Billy Hoekman 17:59
but, and, but some of those things you can kind of cross over to mammals in general. But so I'll start there. And if when you look at some of the sort of more isolated cultures that have been studied, and some of those that you know ate only animals and high amounts of animal fat and fat soluble vitamins, you typically didn't see those. And the prevailing theory there is that when you find them in nature, A, D and k2, and they're all in the right ratio, they help to sort of metabolize each other.
Billy Hoekman 18:33
And so we don't see that, but we're, you know, with our with our foundational line of foods that are very limited. All of our D comes from organs, so the D is going to be on the lower side of of being complete and balanced, right, versus that. But also, like, if you look at the maximum for, you know, retinol, or really any vitamin A, but AAFCO doesn't tell you that, like, you could use a bunch of squash, and then that will be vitamin A, but it's not actually vitamin A, right?
Billy Hoekman 19:07
So when you look at like the maximum, like our food uses more kidney and liver than I think, any other brand, and we're still well below that maximum for for vitamin A or anything like that. And so we have not, you know, we do a lot. We try to do as much data collection as possible. You know, it's why we did the feeding trial. It's why we do various testing throughout the year, that kind of thing. But the best measure of data, in my opinion, is real world use. And so it's your customer feedback, it's, it's, it's all of that.
Billy Hoekman 19:45
And so in the past, you know, going on three years, we haven't had any issues with, you know, fat soluble vitamins. In fact, I would say that most people, most dogs and cats and people, don't get enough. I'd say the problem is way on the other end.
Billy Hoekman 20:00
Especially with vitamin D, and vitamin k2 is really like the unsung hero of fat soluble vitamins, because nobody even knows what vitamin k2 is, and that one is equally as important. You know it's keeps your arteries unclogged
Dr. Judy Morgan
and keeps keeps your blood clotting so you don't bleed to death. You know, there's all kinds of things that we use these for. So, okay, this has been enlightening. And you know it, I think that people need to know the difference between whole food nutrition, synthetic additive nutrition. When we come back, we're going to talk about whole food fats, and that's a huge topic, because so many people get so freaked out. Oh my gosh, I can't have fat in the diet. My dog's gonna get pancreatitis, my cat will get pancreatitis, and it's there's a lot of fallacies out there. So stay tuned. We're gonna take a quick break, and when we come back, we're gonna talk about fats in the diet.
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Dr. Judy Morgan 22:47
Welcome back. You're listening to the Naturally Healthy Pets podcast. I'm your host, Dr Judy Morgan, and my guest today is Billy Hoekman who is Vice President of Nutrition and cCommunication for Green Juju. And so we've been talking about the differences between whole food, vitamins, synthetic vitamins, additives, bioavailability, toxicity. And now we want to move on to talking about fat, because fat gets such a bad rap, and I get, I probably get an email or message from somebody almost daily about pancreatitis and fats, and I want a zero fat diet or a very low fat and some of these prescription diets are so low in fat that they actually cause disease in our pets. Fats are so important for nerve function, brain function, brain health. And you can't keep your your dog or your cat on a 6% fat diet for long periods of time and expect to have good health. And what's really interesting is I get so many emails for these pets that are on prescription diets, usually, usually kibble, but sometimes canned, but highly processed foods that are very, very low fat, and yet they're still getting repeated bouts of pancreatitis. So that's proof, right there, that fat is not the only thing that is involved in causing this.
Dr. Judy Morgan 24:26
So let's talk about whole food fats. One of my big things that I say is, look, you know, here's more proof. Look at keto diets. Keto diets can be up to 70% fat. These are very, very high fat diets, and they're fed raw raw fats, and those pets do not develop pancreatitis. So how can fat be the culprit if we can feed these really high fat diets and pets don't get pancreatitis yet when we feed these very low fat diets that are Highly processed, we do get pancreatitis.
Billy Hoekman 25:00
It's pretty easy to see in those cases that it's the carbohydrates that particularly tax the pancreas, over and over and over again. It's kind of that old wives tale you hear about the dog that's only on dog food, you know, only on kibble, and then, oh, but over Thanksgiving, they got this big piece of fat that was of Turkey, and then they went into pancreatitis. Well, it wasn't actually the fat, it was the taxing of the pancreas day in and day out leading up to that. I really believe that the idea that fat is people have this weird idea that it's like, I know fat needs to be present, but I don't like it. And I think that comes from, you know, the generation before me and the generation before that. We're told in human nutrition that fat is bad, that we should lower fat, you know, that we should do that. I mean, I will tell you right now, and I can say this because I don't think my mom is going to listen to this podcast, but she's still on the low fat train. You know, for the most part, you know, all the reduced fat, all that kind of stuff.
Billy Hoekman 26:04
And I always try to tell people, fat is as important as protein, it's, it's, it's sort of like, as far as, like, whole body health, metabolism, all those things, and the other, the other sort of dirty word, is saturated fat. And I did a I did a talk once where I broke it down. I was like, if you're using just to kind of like, show people, I was like, if you're using animal products, at least half your fat in your diet is going to be saturated fat, because it's the most important fat. It's the most important fat in every cell of your body.
Billy Hoekman 26:42
And so I do think it's kind of like an interesting thing. I think the reason why there's no in the conventional side of pet food, that there's no what's the word I'm looking for, there's no they're not catching up to the fact that it's not fat, is because they have, it has to be kibble. So how do you make that? How do you So, what they're, they're, they're, whether they know it or not, they're sort of hedging their bets, and they're going, well, food has to be in this form. So within this form, how do we make? How do we avoid pancreatitis? But what we're trying to say is it doesn't have to be in that form. It can be in a different form. It can be, you know, it can be frozen. It can be freeze dried. It can be all these things. And so, you know, our our our diets outside of, you know, when we when it comes to fat and protein, for what we do, for those ratios, we formulate to the parts we want to use, and then the fat and and protein are at, what level they're at, they're at where, where they are calorically.
Billy Hoekman 27:46
We don't formulate to feed less. We don't, you know, we formulate for what we think is the healthiest diet, and then whatever the calories are. But it's interesting, because when we use the organs, all of the ratios outside of lamb and our new duck formula, which are just naturally higher in fat. All of them are that one to one by calorie fat ratio, fat to protein. They all hit that like if you're looking at the beef 16% protein, 8% fat. And we think that really lines up with the self selection studies and the wolf studies that are out there.
Billy Hoekman 28:20
And so I would just encourage people to, one, look at fat in a more positive way. But two, as long as you're using as long as you're sourcing correct correctly, you're going to get the right fat ratios. So like, the coolest thing is, you don't have to worry about it. If you're using pastured eggs, they're going to have an appropriate fat ratio of healthy fats. If you're using well sourced meat, it's going to have the correct ratios there. And if that's not available to you, you can obviously supplement that with fish oil and things to bring that in. But for me, you know, in the way that we formulate, we just like to use the well sourced ingredients from the beginning, so then you don't have to worry about, you know, that ratio.
Dr. Judy Morgan
Yeah, it's really interesting. I get emails because I formulate very similar to that, and people say I this has way too much fat in it. I need to have the, you know, the fat lower than this. And I just don't find that to be true. I mean, for me. Personally, I am a huge animal fat person, so the yogurt that I buy is the high fat. I love fresh butter. The only reason to ever eat a piece of bread is so that I can put a stick of butter on it. I don't eat that many carbs, and they're really only made to hold butter in my world.
Billy Hoekman
I wish I would have brought you some butter. Now, I wish you had freezer full of raw butter.
Dr. Judy Morgan
So I actually, I think I still have some. Oh, they got up there. So, you know, we get so afraid of it. And so sometimes I when I'm helping someone with a pet that has something where we need a more Keto diet, I'm like, you can feed them butter, just give them some raw butter. It's going to be great. but you're right. I think it goes back to when I was growing up. That's when margarine came around, and how many American families switched from butter and whole milk to margarine and skim milk and all those fats were supposed to be so bad for us, and it was all taken out. And I guess that's just trickling on down to the pet world.
Billy Hoekman 30:33
Yeah, and it's to the detriment of all those dogs and cats out there. And I would like to point out as well that butter, when when produced in a, in a in a particular way, especially from small farms, is really the most environmentally friendly food on the planet, because if you think about it's just Sun food. So the sun comes down and grows this grass, and that Jersey cow eats that grass and then turns and then you could then milk that cow. You could hand milk that cow and churn that butter, and you've now used no electricity in that right? It's all solar energy. It's solar food. And then that cow is putting carbon back into the ground from the from its grazing practices. And so it's kind of a different way to kind of look at food production in general, and it turns it into this, like, super dense and really, what I would argue, is really the healthiest fat that is also, you know, has vitamin D, has vitamin especially vitamin k2 which honestly is almost impossible to find in foods. It's, it's a very when you take out traditionally based foods and meat based foods, it's very difficult, unless you're getting vitamin k2 MK 7 versus vitamin k2 MK vitamin k2 MK 4, which is the animal version. Both. Those are very healthy. Both are needed, not good to take out either one of those, right? Like MK 7 is what you're going to find from, like fermented foods, like sauerkraut, things like that.
Billy Hoekman 32:08
So, but yeah, I think when it comes to fats, I think just going back to A. the natural ratio of those, but then also just looking for for dogs and cats. We obviously want to use as many animal source fats as possible. There are, there's a there are uses for other ones. We know coconut oil, we know, but coconut oil is an interesting one, because it's all it's unlike other plants, right? It's, it's the same medium chain fatty acids that are in like goat milk, for example. And so it's almost like, more like an animal fat, but in a plant, and it's, it's so high in and so wherein all dogs and cats could have, like, all the different animal fats, I think we we should limit it to the ones we know are healthy when it comes to the plant based fats for them.
Dr. Judy Morgan
yeah, yeah. Well, unfortunately, the processing of a lot of the plant based fats then makes them unhealthy.
Dr. Judy Morgan 33:11
And certainly we have to worry about the biggest problem with with fats that makes them unhealthy is oxidation. And you know, that's and that's interesting, because when you have a food, a highly processed food, that's cooked at high heat temperatures, why? Why? I mean, aren't all those fats oxidized after they've gone through all of that high heat processing?
Billy Hoekman
Yeah, well, especially at very, very high temperatures. But we've been worried about that with just mixing temperatures, like, even if it's like, you're you have a raw food, and you're just putting in fish oil and then mixing the food and exposing it to air over and over again. And that's, that's why we made our foundational line without any fish oil, and that's the same reason why in our new line, we use whole sardines, because we were looking for kind of like, let we're also looking for like, the eyes and the brain and, you know, all those good parts of the fish. But we were, we were looking to reduce the idea that you were going to oxidize those fats, but especially at super high temperatures. And then even when you get into oils, you really have to shop around for the highest quality, like, you know, as someone who takes cod liver oil every day, and as someone whose family takes cod liver oil every day,
Billy Hoekman 34:31
there's like three cod liver oils that naturally contain vitamins that aren't added back to them. And so it takes a lot of research, you know. And unfortunately, with most people, you know, if they're making a homemade diet or something, they're just gonna go to the supplement section be like, Oh, this is, this is a cod liver oil. And then they look on the back and, oh, that's actually synthetic D versus, you know, it's added back into it. And so I totally just lost my train of thought of why we were here.
Billy Hoekman 35:00
But for oxidation, Yeah, so, so. But that just also goes back to our our philosophy of Whole Foods, you know, versus that. So that's why, when we were looking at poultry, we were like, oh, okay, even when you get the best poultry, pastured poultry, it typically is a higher omega six ratio than we want, because even pasture poultry is getting feed that kind of thing, which kind of knocks that up. And so that's why we didn't do poultry with our limited line, because that was just based on the single protein, where in this one we were like, oh, but what a healthy thing to take these really awesome pasture birds and then Pair that with sardines, just to get it down to like a one to four omega three to six ratio, and get it right where kind of it needs to be there.
Dr. Judy Morgan
Yeah, I'm a huge fan of whole sardines. They're in pup loaf.
Billy Hoekman
Yeah, exactly right, yeah.
Dr. Judy Morgan
And it's really funny, because before I started developing pup loaf, I had only ever seen sardines in a can that and I remember going out and looking for sardines, like fish sardines, and they were this big. They were not these little, tiny things in a can. And I was flabbergasted, the first time I actually saw like real sardines in the frozen fish section.
Billy Hoekman
Oh for sure. I actually had a guy once who I was at a speaking at a conference. And people ask you questions all the time after and you know, you know how it is, like you walk three feet and somebody else asks you a question and you can't get, you know, to the bathroom. But this guy was like, just tell me if I'm doing this right. And he's like, I live in Puerto Rico, and I go down and I hand catch the sardines. And I was like, Yep, you're doing it right. Just keep doing that thing, whatever, whatever. Don't know why that was a question, but you are absolutely doing this correctly.
Dr. Judy Morgan
Hand catch the sardines. Okay, you know, my son lives in Puerto Rico, I'm gonna have to send him a message and say, can you go hand catch a sardine? I don't think it's gonna happen, but
Billy Hoekman
hey, you can try.
Dr. Judy Morgan 37:01
That's a new challenge. So we got a couple minutes left in this segment. Talk about the difference in the Omega six and three ratios in most highly processed food versus, for instance, you're talking about a four to one. And a lot of these raw food companies, you know, they're three to one, two to one, four to one, and that's where we want to be. But for anybody who's not familiar with that, can you just give us a quick what the difference is and why you want them down at that lower range?
Billy Hoekman
Well, AAFCO, I think, sets out like 30 to one or something insane like that. And we know that. We know. And there is, there is agreement and disagreement about particulars. So I know the average prey animals like one to five, right? You can get lower than that. The best data I've looked at is anything one to eight and lower. So that's what I go by. I know some people say one to five, whatever it is, but all those are drastically different. And so omega three and six are essential fatty acids, so you need to consume them in order to have health, in order for your body to function. And they're in everything. But the more you improperly feed an animal, the higher they become. So like it for a cow, if they only eat grass, it's like anywhere from one to four to one to one.
Billy Hoekman 38:31
If they eat grains, it's anywhere from one to 17 and higher. And we know that's inflammatory. So omega sixes are inflammatory. Omega threes are anti inflammatory. Both are equally as important. People kind of demonize Omega sixes now they're equally as important. It's just we eat way too many in the American diet, in everything in in dog and cat diets, most of those kibbles are made with grains which are very high in Omega sixes. So you're just basically keeping that inflammation ratio to an equal amount, you're always essentially going to have slightly more, usually Omega sixes. But that's how it's meant in nature, right? Unless your dog is only eating fish, right? Then? Then maybe they might.
Billy Hoekman 39:11
And so we formulate all of ours to to be sort of like within that ratio. But just a great example that is our goat diet is wild, harvested in Australia, so they are culling an overpopulation. And that's actually a two to one natural ratio, and that comes from, or I should say, one to two, but that comes from that goat's very diet, right? They're not eating any grain, they're outside. They're eating all these different plants, and it just naturally is that one to two ratio?
Dr. Judy Morgan 39:45
pretty cool. So bottom line, don't be afraid of fats in the food. Make sure they're good fats, and we want to look at those ratios, but those are not published on the nutrient panel.
Dr. Judy Morgan 40:00
On the bag, right the ratio?
Billy Hoekman
No, but we do. I will say this. We are maybe one of the only companies so, so, because our foundational line, our limited ingredient line, is just the protein itself, we do all the full fatty acid panel testing.
Billy Hoekman 40:17
And so, you know, we, we have the nitty gritty of every single fat that is that is in that, and that's how we verify that our sourcing is doing what they're supposed to do right. That is grass fed, that it's that, it's that.
Billy Hoekman 40:31
But the cool thing is, we do that work so people don't have to exactly so my, my, my, like conclusion when I talk about this, is animal fats, when raised correctly, are always healthy, right? And that's all you need to worry about with dogs and cats like get a majority of your fat from there, make sure they're raised correctly, and you're good to go.
Dr. Judy Morgan
There you go. And by correctly, that's grass fed, pasture raised, not confinement raised, because confinement raised animals are fed very highly inflammatory diets, and therefore those ratios are really out of whack.
Billy Hoekman
Now, Skittles are great for cows. You didn't know that?.
Dr. Judy Morgan
Cows should always eat Skittles. That's exactly what we should feed them every day. Stay tuned. We'll be right back. We're going to hear from our sponsor, and then we're going to talk about how you can make your pet's bowl just a little healthier.
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Dr. Judy Morgan 43:57
Welcome back. You're listening to the Naturally Healthy Pets podcast. I'm your host, Dr Judy Morgan and my guest today, Billy Hoekman, Vice President of Nutrition and communication at Green juju, has been giving us all of his nerdy knowledge about food, which is amazing. Somebody has to be that nerd,
Billy Hoekman
you know, I will tell you, I appreciate you pronouncing My name correctly every time, because and I'm hoping she hears this, but I've been on tour with Rita Hogan, and she mispronounces My name every time she announces me. So I appreciate that about you.
Dr. Judy Morgan
Well, Yay, I got one thing right. So when you had your first dog, Lua, that's when you really got into this food nerd way of being. But one of the things that I loved when you had Lua, and I'm this way with my own pets as well, is you would very commonly, for social media, make these amazing food bowls or plates. With all these bright colors and all these different things, and you used a lot of diversity and creativity, and I've kind of seen you do it with your daughter as well. You know, it's,
Dr. Judy Morgan 45:15
I'm a huge fan of diversity in feeding, and unfortunately, the traditional veterinary spiel about food is same thing in the bowl every day without varying. Don't add anything to it, because you'll unbalance it, which is a myth to begin with.
Dr Judy Morgan 45:36
So you're a huge fan of diversity with the food.
Billy Hoekman
Yeah, it's funny. You bring up the pictures because we recently ordered a new couch, so with Huckleberry's food, the background is the couch. And we had to reorder this couch for a very for long. I won't tell that story, but it was going to be eight to 10 weeks to get this couch. And I was like, Oh my God, I don't get to don't get to take a picture of the food for eight to 10 weeks. This is not and Emily was like, That is not the first reason why.
Billy Hoekman 46:12
Because, side note, we did get an Amazon blowup couch in the meantime, and that is weird. So just throwing that out there.
Billy Hoekman 46:24
So no, I, you know, I'm a huge fan of diversifying the diet with things you have at home and things that you have, just generally, even for people that like making food or feeding commercial raw, or whatever they're doing, but especially those that are feeding kibble with with whatever they have at home. And that's the way. The way that I feed my dog is I look at the base of calories. So he generally gets, basically, with my dog, 50% of his calories come from our food, and then 50% of his calories come from one egg in milk. So 50% of his diet is eggs and milk, and then 50% of his diet is food. But on top of that, I can because that makes up the caloric part of the diet. One of the other things that I'm adding, vegetables, berries, all this stuff, doesn't really affect the calories overall, very much, right? Like, you could add in two tablespoons of our veggie blends, and it might be 12 calories, right, right? So I don't really consider that when I'm looking into that. So the way that I feed is, I kind of feed that base, and then I can I get the veggie blend out. I, you know, having a four year old, there's berries everywhere in my fridge, and so I can add those in. I can add in some of her coconut yogurt, whatever I just feel like adding that day. And I think that that stuff makes a huge, huge contribution to the overall nutrition, but also the overall diversity of diet, especially when it comes to also potentially like fermented foods. If you're incorporating more of those into your diet, that's a way where you can do more stuff at home. And I also think it prepares people to not have to think about food like I think people who get into raw food are like, oh, man, I have to do this big prep day. It's gonna take a whole day of the month, and I'm gonna have to freeze it all. And you can do that if you love doing that. I don't love doing that. So what I love doing is I obviously use our food and our things, but then I add things that are already just there, and I think that's the easiest way for people to add colors and different nutrients.
Dr. Judy Morgan
Oh, absolutely. And so this is the first year that I have been successful in gardening. So, you know, summer rotation, fall rotation, you know, being able to have truly organic food, because I'm not using anything, and when the bugs come in, the bugs win. And that's fine. I've already gotten what I need.
Dr. Judy Morgan 49:01
And so I when you get your garden correct, it is, it produces so abundantly. So it has enabled us to give food away to friends and family, and it's enabled us to put a lot of things in the freezer. And, you know, I can dehydrate things, but what it also allows is you eat seasonally, and our dogs have benefited greatly from the garden as well. So during the summer, when it's 95 degrees and humid in North Carolina, a little bit of ground cucumber, which is so cooling and so draining a little bit of melon, which, you know, makes a great snack. So I can feed seasonally. We go into the fall season, it's like, oh, now we have root vegetables. And so taking what is, and not everybody's gonna grow their own garden and be crazy, but looking at what you can source locally, and.
Dr. Judy Morgan 50:00
What you can source seasonally is going to be so beneficial. So that's my, my nerdy TCVM food therapy.
Billy Hoekman
And better for your pocketbook too, because things that are in season are usually less expensive.
Dr. Judy Morgan
And if we can get stuff that's growing locally and not having to be shipped around the world, then that's going to be, you know, better for our pocketbooks as well. That's, that's my shout out for all the, you know, local farmers and farm stands, let's support them. They do a great job.
Billy Hoekman
And there's more and more of that too. I mean, I know my family signed up for a CSA and and we found that, you know, it's, it's less about the budget part of it, because we were actually probably spending less honestly, than going to somewhere like Whole Foods or something like that, but it's just more about the focusing part of it. And you can always use all of the what you're not using for your dogs, but really anything that you can add. I mean, even, you know, even down to Maple eats at a little table in the living room, and Huckleberry is always stationed directly next to her, just staring at her and going under the table. And there's chicken going down. There's all these different foods, and some of it is stuff I wouldn't feed him, generally, like, Oh, here's lentils or whatever. But I'm sure that's actually contributing to his nutrition just overall. And luckily, we feed her very well. You know, I don't know too many other four year olds that eat a whole can of sardines or that, but she's,
Billy Hoekman 51:34
Hopefully people don't think she's a weirdo as she gets older. But that's, that's, that's the
Dr. Judy Morgan
Well, it depends if you pack her lunch with a can of sardines. People might think it's a little weird.
Billy Hoekman
That's true. That is true.
Billy Hoekman 51:47
So, but I think all of that really matters to what the diet is, and it speaks to, you know, and the other part too, I've been, this is kind of a non sequitur, but I've just been thinking about it more and because, and I was kind of talking about it with some people recently, is just the fear there is poop, what's their poop gonna look like? All that? And I, you know, there's this idea that it should look the same every time, but I think that's only perpetuated because dogs only ate the same thing all the time. So we have this kind of idea that, Oh, if I do anything else, it's going to make the poop look different, or it's going to be slightly softer, or whatever. But like, you know, not to be gross, but think of yourself. It's probably different most days. And that's normal, right? And so it's just an interesting like thought to think about like that shouldn't hold you back from doing it. Whenever people talk about, like, oh, it it changes, I always say, like, there's a lot of other identifiers you can look at, how's their whole body health, how's their energy, how's their eyes, how are all these things? And if those things are normal, I think my own dog is a great example that I mean 36% of his diet. It's, I know it's ridiculous that I know that is raw milk, right? So his poop isn't gonna look exactly like a dog that doesn't drink he he's a he's a 28 pound dog. He drinks nine ounces of milk a day. Wow, yeah. And so
Dr. Judy Morgan
I don't think I could get my dogs to drink that much, yeah. So like they're not that big fan.
Billy Hoekman
So he loves it, clearly. But it also, I feed him once a day, and now he's like, when the food's out, he's like, Okay, I'm ready.
Billy Hoekman 53:26
But so that's an extreme example of, like, his poop's gonna look different just generally. But I always look at his body, and obviously there's extreme cases, like, if you're seeing like, problems consistently, then that's a whole different thing. But I don't mind some variation there, you know,
Dr. Judy Morgan
yeah, I think that that's a big thing.
Dr. Judy Morgan 53:47
You know, I people say, if I vary his diet at all, we have instant GI upset. It's like, it's not really supposed to be that way. That's, that's a sign of an unhealthy gut, yeah, that's, that's a sign of we've got some other problems going on that have not been addressed, basically related to the diet not being appropriate overall, and, and, and that's not, that's not a knock against kibble or processed food. There are some raw diets that are not appropriate for some dogs. You know, this brand might be great for your dog, this brand over here, the formulation of that may not be great for your dog, so they're there. And cats are included in this too. I'm sorry I keep saying dog,
Dr Judy Morgan 54:37
I just don't see as many gi problems in cats. Cats are definitely, they're tougher. They're not small dogs.
Billy Hoekman
The only thing I'm getting from this is that Judy Morgan doesn't like cats,
Dr. Judy Morgan
yeah, right, that's why I have nine.
Billy Hoekman 54:51
So you heard it here first.
Dr. Judy Morgan 54:54
Yeah, I like our little clowder. It's, it's kind of fun having this clowder.
Billy Hoekman 55:00
Well I Do think you touched on something really important there, though, no diet is perfect for every dog. and so when Green Juju formulates a diet. We try to formulate it for as many dogs and cats as possible, but we know that it's not going to work for every single dog or cat. And I think that some companies go at it like, well, has to be something that we can tweak. Because our diet is great. Your diet is great doesn't mean it works for that dog or cat. And so we kind of start from that premise
Dr. Judy Morgan 55:27
yeah. So it may not be the fault of the diet. It may be that this is just not the one for your particular pet. And people realize that in humans, yeah. And I bring up this example a lot, but Kelley Marian, the owner of Green Juju also cares very much about nutrition and what goes into her body, her family's body, and it's completely different than my diet. Yeah, we have completely different diets, and because that's what works for her, and this is what works for me, and so we have to give that leeway to dogs and cats as well. Like, there is that much leeway, right? Yeah, so.
Dr. Judy Morgan
But the bottom line is, don't be afraid to have fun with the food.
Dr. Judy Morgan 56:07
I mean, your bowls look a lot like mine. When I'm having fun with them, it's like, look, it's a rainbow in there. Yeah, there's I love. I always say, color the rainbow when you're putting stuff in that diet, if it all gets ground together, you end up with brown. No matter what.
Dr. Judy Morgan 56:26
I think I should leave a lot more of this stuff whole so that it looks prettier, but we're helping with digestion with it.
Billy Hoekman
Yeah, that's what we run into. It's actually kind of interesting, because people, when they look at our frozen food, think that the discoloration is is mostly because of the HPP, but it's not. It's actually because it's just double ground, so you're just exposing it to air, so that discolors it more than anything, and that doesn't necessarily like affect the nutritional quality in an extreme way. But that is very true about just that in general, brown, yeah, exactly.
Dr. Judy Morgan
Brown is the color you're gonna get. Well, I think it's fun. And I mean, the whole reason we got chickens originally was so that I would have fresh, organic chicken eggs for the dogs. It wasn't for the people in the house, it was for the dogs. Of course, now the people eat more than the dogs do, but having having fresh raw eggs. I'll have to feed my dogs some raw eggs. While you're here. Forest cannot figure out the texture of raw eggs. It just it totally sends him into outer space. He's like, I do not know what to do with this. And he can usually get the yolks down, but the whites, he just can't.
Billy Hoekman
I will say sometimes Huckleberry will actually, like, now it's kind of in a lot of milk, but when it, when it hasn't been, he somehow eats it without licking it, like he'll just eat grab it. And I'm like, How did you do that?
Dr. Judy Morgan
Well, and I think that's what mine are trying to do, because when they lick it, especially they eat on the platter. So it's like sliding around on the platter, and they want to grab it, and that's how they manage to get the yolk. But the whites, if I don't mix it in with something, they really have a hard time grabbing it.
Billy Hoekman
I love it's actually funny. I love the platters. However, with that much milk, I can't do it. Yeah, so I do one of those big baking dishes. That's the same sort of concept in that it's like, large, you know, right? But it can hold that, you know, amount of moisture. But the funny thing is, I still, because I'm OCD and the pictures all have to look the same, I have a particular white bowl that I use only for the picture, so He only eats that, you know, a couple times a month when I take the picture. But yeah, normally it's in this big that's kind of funny, because I miss feeding my dog so much that a lot of people have, like, pictures of their kids on their phone. I have pictures of my dog's food, just random pictures for me making it so for when I travel. Yeah, the food nerd, yep, exactly, right.
Dr. Judy Morgan
Well, next time you see Billy out and about, ask him to see the pictures of his dog's food on his phone, and you might actually get lucky and see a picture of his daughter as well. She's adorable,
Billy Hoekman 59:09
but you want to see those pictures way more. I can tell you that.
Dr. Judy Morgan 59:14
Well, this has been just very, very enlightening, and I appreciate all the work that you do. Where can people find out more information about the food nerd Billy Hoekman?
Billy Hoekman
Everything is via Green Juju. So check us out on Instagram, Facebook. We do have a YouTube channel, and we do there's a lot of information there. And if you're a retailer and you sell our products, we do have on the retail dot pet portal. We do have a lot of training videos there as well. So
Dr. Judy Morgan
awesome, yeah, I think probably a lot of pet parents could use some of those training videos. And on Dr Judy U, we have a course from you on Fermenting foods and fermented foods, Billy's just a huge fan. That's why he blows up things in his kitchen, which I forgot to tell you that my husband is experimenting with fermenting. And when we started talking, I thought, Oh, gee, we have some stuff fermenting in the cabinet that hasn't been burped in a week because we've been away. Hopefully it hasn't exploded. We'll have to check that later.
Billy Hoekman 1:00:23
We'll talk about some of the equipment you can use to avoid that. So it's fine. Yeah.
Dr. Judy Morgan
Thank you for tuning in today to the Naturally Healthy Pets podcast. I'm your host Dr Judy Morgan, keep your pets safe.
OUTRO/DISCLAIMER
The purpose of this podcast is to educate and to inform. It is no substitute for professional care by a veterinarian, licensed nutritionist or other qualified professional. You're encouraged to do your own research, and should not rely on this information as professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Dr Judy and her guests express their own views, experience and conclusions. Dr Judy Morgan's Naturally Healthy Pets neither endorses or opposes any particular view discussed here.
